Background: The pregnancy rates from oocytes matured in vitro are much lower than those of in vivo stimulation cycles, indicating that optimization of IVM remains a challenge. Reduced developmental competence of oocytes matured in vitro indicates that current culture systems for oocytes maturation do not adequately support nuclear and/or cytoplasmic maturation. Therefore in this study, we evalu...

The stress of migration as well as social factors and changes related to the receiving society may lead to the manifestation of psychiatric disorders in vulnerable individuals after migration. The diversity of cultures, ethnicities, races and reasons for migration poses a challenge for those seeking to understand how illness is experienced by immigrants whose backgrounds differ significantly fr...

International business is increasingly undertaken within flexible, multi-organisational eBusinesses to address the needs of the global market. Underpinning this are Businessto-Business (B2Bs) processes and Web Services. The purpose of this paper is to outline new ideas to speed-up business processes, to allow early intervention by mediators or arbitrators, thereby avoiding litigation. It addres...

When disinherited heirs challenge a will drafted by a person suspected of having dementia, a legal battle may ensue. The "lucid interval," a brief return to competence from a state of dementia, has been invoked in years past to establish the validity of contested wills. Shulman et al., having reviewed the medical and legal literature, make a convincing argument that no such period of competence...

The major challenge in assisted reproduction technologies remains producing oocytes with optimal developmental competence. Such developmental competence can be defined as the ability of the oocyte to fulfill maturation, undergo successful fertilization, reach the blastocyst stage and yield a viable and healthy progeny. The main follicular parameters linked to oocyte competence are presented in ...

This paper describes an experiment to explore the effects of the TENCompetence infrastructure for supporting lifelong competence development which is now in development. This infrastructure provides structured, multi-leveled access to learning materials, based upon competences. People can follow their own learning path, supported by a listing of competences and their components, by competence d...

Within the TENCompetence project we aim to develop and integrate models and tools into an open source infrastructure for the creation, storage and exchange of learning objects, suitable knowledge resources as well as learning experiences. This contribution analyzes the potential of social software tools for providing part of the required functionality, as well as some challenges involved.

ulcerative colitis is a chronic disease that specifically affects the mucosa of the rectum and colon. although the etiology of this recurring inflammatory disorder remains essentially unknown, there have been significant advances in identifying the likely genetic and environmental factors that contribute to its pathogenesis. the clinical course of the disease typically manifests with remissions...

Of the many dilemmas facing the assessment of literary competence, one is the extent to which language should constitute part of the target construct intended to be measured. Some argue for the construct-irrelevance of language and hence recommend that it be eliminated or minimized in favor of an exclusive focus on literary competence. In practice, this does not seem to be the case, as language...